


somnum exterreri solebat

by rockholmes



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Blood, M/M, Masturbation, One-Sided Attraction, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:17:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4353968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockholmes/pseuds/rockholmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper's kind of a messed up kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	somnum exterreri solebat

**Author's Note:**

> so I have another story going on and I'm totally working on that but please take this self-indulgent gross depiction of a child being attracted to a flying triangle with one eye.

If Bill Cipher has noticed Dipper's completely obvious fixation on him, he hasn't mentioned anything. It's one of the very few things Dipper can say he's grateful for regarding the weird triangle guy.

He knows for a fact that Bill's noticed, because he's all Dipper dreams about. And Bill's a dream demon, so he's sure he knows. It's a little weird when the one he's dreaming about knows he's dreaming about him, but Dipper's not about to make it a topic of conversation.

So, yeah, Dipper's had more than one encounter with an extremely powerful creature who takes the shape of...well, a shape, and who doesn't even once fail to remind Dipper of his extreme power, and Dipper's kind of been interested in who he is, what he is, where he's come from, and just about everything that has to do with him. Can he really be blamed for that? According to everyone around him (Mabel, who calls his fascination an obsession) and anyone who he's thought he's trusted enough to confide in over it (Soos, who is a great listener, but doesn't offer much feedback and somehow makes Dipper feel even more crazy than he knows he is), his concerns evidently aren't well-received. It's more frustrating than almost anything. Almost, he thinks, because the only thing that tops it is how frustrated he is over the anomaly that is Bill Cipher.

Then again, pretty much everything now seems frustrating. The one who was supposed to have all the answers, the author of the journals, is sitting just below him, and he can't even talk to him. It's like finally beating a game, or getting to the resolution of a complicated movie, thinking you're just about to understand everything, that this is what you've been working up to, only to have everything abruptly end, the screen going black, and being left with even more questions than answers. And that's a lot like Bill, now that he thinks about it. They've had few real encounters. With those, Dipper's found he's only become more and more drawn to the demon as time goes on.

He thinks that sort of thing is natural, since his whole life, he's been interested in the paranormal. It's just that prior to arriving in Gravity Falls, prior to being confronted directly with almost constant supernatural creatures and things, he never really had an outlet for his strange interests. Outside of the internet and games and books, he had no direction for his studies to take. Even then, the media obviously didn't always know everything about unusual creatures, since what he's seen has contradicted what he thought he knew. He hadn't come across the oddities that the world had to offer at all, and being face-to-face with a being who probably knows anything and everything about those sorts of things, it's only expected that he'd be immensely interested in figuring out whatever he can about it.

That interest comes at a price, though. That price seems, unfortunately, to be his sanity.

He's had a couple of encounters with Gravity Falls' most powerful and horrifying creature of all, and he's even had his body possessed by it. They had some clearly lasting effects, since he's barely been able to get sleep, and when he has, he's only ever been able to have nightmares. He wants sleep, wants it more than almost anything, but is afraid to sleep all the same for fear of being haunted by _him_.

Dipper's not sure when he started fearing Bill the way he does now. Maybe he always has feared Bill, and just hasn't really thought about it enough to feel it necessary to admit it to himself. But when his body had been possessed by and abused by the demon, that fear grew infinitely. Even weeks after that incident, he was finding unusual scars on his body that he didn't remember getting. Spots on his arms from fork stabbings, a slash on his shoulder blade from what seemed to be the sharp edge of a cabinet or something similar, bruises _all_ over him...he honestly doesn't know how Bill could deal with and even _enjoy_ the pain he felt when he got his body back.

Even though he doesn't know how some of the injuries got on him, his dreams have falsely filled in gaps. Visions of him, out of control of his body, watching as he purposefully throws himself down flights of stairs and slams his limbs onto varying surfaces and trips carelessly around. It's all too vivid, as if they're actually happening, but he knows that some of those bruises and cuts were made at times he had absolutely no knowledge of, at times he wasn't even present, so he chalks it up to his subconscious making stuff up out of his own fear of Bill.

It's weird having nightmares about a dream demon, because it's hard to tell when they're just nightmares or when Bill's actually _there_.

And sometimes Bill really _does_ visit Dipper in his dreams. He can tell. There's a weird, ominous presence when he's there compared to when he's not. Dipper has it burned into his brain at this point.

Usually, he just alters Dipper's dreams a bit to turn them into even worse nightmares than they already are, or sometimes just makes his presence known through an eye or a triangle on whatever object decides to take up the background of his subconscious visions at the moment. Dipper's gotten used to it now, stopped waking up in cold sweats and breathing heavily, and almost always just feels irritated and furious in the morning. Or sometimes, he really is shaken, like in the dreams where he's no longer himself, or the ones where he's mutilated in some way, or the ones where Mabel is hurt somehow. Those are the worst ones. He can deal with himself being hurt, can take whatever gruesome torture Bill has in store for him, but he can't deal with Mabel being hurt.

Maybe Bill just hasn't caught onto that yet, or maybe he just likes injuring Dipper personally rather than through harming his sister. Probably the latter, Dipper thinks as he stares up at his dark ceiling.

Even though Dipper thinks he can tell when Bill is and isn't really there, he starts to doubt even that knowledge. He's not sure anymore, because it seems as time goes on, the dream demon is there more and more, and even the differences start to blur. It gets harder and harder over time to tell when it's really Bill and when it's just a sleeping hallucination that Dipper's conjured all by himself by memorizing Bill's shape and voice. Even when he's awake, he sees eyes and triangles in his peripheral vision. The voice, even when he's sure he's not sleeping, is still there, loud and clear and horrible and grating.

But if he snaps himself out of his daydreams, if he focuses his eyes more, they go away, and he can act like he isn't constantly seeing and hearing things. It gets harder, gradually, but he can still do it. He can still function and tell what's real and what isn't. He wonders if, eventually, he'll stop being able to tell the difference entirely. He wonders, sometimes, if telling the difference even matters anymore

That night, Dipper had a dream about seeing himself throw Mabel off of a cliff, listening to the slow descent of her shriek while silently screaming himself.

He woke up at three in the morning and didn't go back to sleep.

* * *

Before Gravity Falls, Dipper knew about demons.

He's done extensive online and offline research, read books, seen movies, played games. He thought he had a good grasp on what a demon truly was, and he was rightfully frightened at the image he created in his head. Before, when he thought of a demon, he thought of a horned, red monster with sharp teeth and skin like brimstone or lava or charcoal. They're supposed to look like they came straight out of hell, like they were spawned from fire and death. They're supposed to look the part of the disgusting abomination they are. One that you can look at and immediately know that you can't comprehend, one you're immediately terrified of, one that immediately fills you with dread and a sense that you're about to die, or that you could die at any moment.

But now Dipper's actually met a demon. He's been possessed by one, he's gotten to know one intimately. And now he knows that the fear isn't something that you even know you feel, when you start to feel it. It's a gradual emotion, a buildup of horror that is less like a startled scream and more like a final breakdown after seemingly unending suspense, to the point where you're pleading for a scare, for the wait to end. Dipper knows that he isn't safe. He doesn't know how long he's known that.

All Dipper sees now when he thinks of a demon is gold, and pure blue fire, and an eye that sees all. It's sparkling, shimmering, too bright to look at but too mesmerizing and breathtaking to look away from. But it's also something that, by all normal means, shouldn't be horrible or even partially scary. It's something simple, lacking intimidation, underwhelming. Something that goes unnoticed, though only on purpose, so it can watch everyone and everything without being caught. It doesn't need to be large and powerful-looking, because it already knows it's powerful and doesn't always need to prove it through appearances. In fact, it takes pleasure in showing its power through actions and example, so it can see the shift into a horrified and sick expression on the faces of all who underestimate him. It's the embodiment of paranoia, of not knowing what's coming until it's there, and wondering then how long it's been there.

And it's even more terrifying than the picture Dipper had painted of demons before.

Dipper was afraid of Bill before he even knew he was afraid, and that concept beyond scares him.

The demon he created in his head was something he knew from the moment he saw it that he couldn't comprehend, but Bill's appearance was so unassuming that he didn't even know, didn't even think about just how much he didn't know. The realization of how much mystery shrouds this strange creature gave him more interest in unraveling that mystery. But he realized immediately that normal demons, the ones he thought were normal, were things he couldn't understand no matter how much he might have tried were they to exist. Bill gives him a strange hope that he might be able to understand. And maybe it's a false hope. Maybe it's all a part of how Bill wants Dipper to think. Maybe he'll never understand.

But Dipper's never given up just for the reason of _maybe_ , and he's not about to start now, even if it kills him in the process.

Even with that thought, he can't find himself able to fall asleep, and ends up staying awake throughout the whole night.

* * *

That morning, Mabel yelled at him.

It was a time when he was almost at the point of passing out after staying up for hours upon hours. He realizes now that it was totally his fault, because he just wouldn't shut up about Bill, about what he'd done or what he'd said in his dream the last time he slept or the time before that, and he could see the exasperation in her eyes, but he just couldn't stop himself. There was too much to talk about, there's always too much to talk about regarding Bill. He kept going on and on, and wouldn't stop, and she eventually just blew up at him. Her exact words were, _"Where does your obsession end?"_

She said sorry eventually, and he didn't tell her that she had nothing to apologize for, but she didn't. It got him to thinking in a way he hadn't before. She's asked this sort of thing before, but not in that way, not with those words.

Where _does_ it end?

Or, he thinks, more specifically, where does it begin? Or even just, what does it entail? His curiosity is pure, he thinks, or he used to be sure of it. But at this point, Bill's invaded every part of him, dug his stick-like fingers into his brain and replaced him for a time, gotten to know every single inch of Dipper to the point where it just _can't_ be pure, or at least not in the conventional sense. Dipper thinks that it's pure, but in a way that no one else considers pure. Everyone wants Bill gone, but if Dipper's honest with himself, all he wants to do is understand the demon and understand where he came from, what he really is, and if he's gone before Dipper can do that, there's no point. Sure, if Dipper gets all of his answers, gets to the point where he knows everything about Bill and everything about Gravity Falls, then yes, he guesses that Bill can be destroyed.

But even then, there's a small part of Dipper that's growing marginally larger every day, a part that assumes understanding Bill entirely will never happen. That, somehow, understanding him isn't actually Dipper's _real_ goal, and that the chase for the truth is more important, more exciting and enjoyable than actually getting answers. And that if he really does find everything out, he'll feel something of a gnawing disappointment, since that feeling of mystery will never come back after all of his questions have been answered.

He doesn't really know how to deal with that sort of thing, but thinks just then. If someone of Stan's age, someone who's exposed himself to the strange, doesn't understand everything in Gravity Falls (even though he hasn't been there his whole life, he's been there a while at _least_ ), then Dipper gets the feeling he won't have a chance of knowing everything, or even most of everything, for at _least_ a decade or two, being _generous_.

When he lays his head down for the night with that thought, he expects to feel hopelessness in his gut, not the comfort that instead lies deep within him.

He sees Bill in his dream that night, but it's the first time that he isn't afraid, and he hopes that the dream demon doesn't see the small smile that appears on his face. But he knows he sees. He always sees.

* * *

Mabel went to a sleepover with her two friends, and has left Dipper alone at night for the first time in a while. Needless to say, he doesn't exactly feel safe. Then again, he doesn't really ever feel safe.

But he sort of wishes she left earlier, just so he could get ready sooner, get used to not having someone else in the room he sleeps in.

He knew from that morning that she'd be leaving, and immediately knew it wasn't something he could handle. He smiled and laughed nervously, nodding in what he tried to make out to be indifference when she told him. But he afterward set to exhausting himself as quickly as possible so that when he'd fall on his bed, he'd automatically fall asleep.

Or, that was the plan.

The hot summer leaves his skin feeling warm and sticky with sweat, even worse now that he's worked himself even harder than normal, and not even sleeping without a blanket can cool him down. It certainly doesn't help that he's even more anxious about what might happen without Mabel there. The itching, burning feeling in his abdomen is back, the one he felt a little bit before he got over his feelings for Wendy, and he smacks his forehead with the realization that oh, of course, he's been frustrated in this way, too. Why not? Might as well cover all of the bases, is what he thinks sarcastically as he rolls his eyes and shoves his hand into his pants with the intent to just get it over with so he can get some sleep already.

Oh. Sleep. Right. That's a thing that he's been having trouble with lately, because of a weird triangle demon.

And that thought leaves him feeling _really_ uncomfortable suddenly. Because he knows he's just kind of laying there, hand down his shorts, fully aware now that Bill's possibly watching him somewhere. Or maybe he's not, maybe he has a little bit of decency after all and is politely leaving him to take care of business before he enters Dipper's dreams to torment him. Or maybe he's elsewhere completely. Yeah, Gravity Falls is pretty small, but there must be other people Bill is interested in, right? Even then, he figures that if he does end up stopping himself from doing this just from the thought that Bill might be watching, his paranoia might _really_ drive him insane.

So, he comes to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter.

Who cares if he's being watched? It's not like Bill is human, anyway, so how would he even know the real meaning of his actions? Even if he does, it doesn't matter, he tells himself, so Dipper goes back to his issue and starts to grind up against his own hand.

And, yeah, he's trying to convince himself that he doesn't care, but he can't get over the thought that he might see Bill in the corner of his eye and freak out, so he closes them both and lays his head back, trying his best to relax, something he hasn't been able to do basically all summer. It's strange to think about, to think that he might actually have someone watching him as he's touching himself.

It makes him nervous, speeds up his breathing, and he starts sweating even more than before. There's the regular fear there, the kind he always associates with Bill, but there's something else, too. In a way, it frightens him even more, and he grits his teeth as he imagines that if he looks now, there will be eyes floating everywhere, triangles covering everything in his room, gold flecks at the edge of his vision and remnants of blue flames outlining every corner. Without wanting to, he begins to imagine Bill _everywhere_ , eyes watching him as he tries to get over a problem his growing body created for him.

He comes then, to the thought of being watched, and instinctively opens his eyes for one moment to see everything normal, unaltered, just as he left it. Then he sleeps, and the normal terror is there, but it's diluted somewhat, mixed with what feels like guilt and confusion, and the emotion becomes somehow even less manageable than before.

* * *

That morning, he wakes up with a hard-on and can't remember his dream. He decides to take a cold shower.

He wonders then, when his mind is a little clearer, exactly how long he's had this... _issue_. And then, wonders for a split second if the object of his _issue_ is aware of it, and then immediately runs his hands down his face and decides not to wonder about that basically ever again.

A few hours pass as he mindlessly does chores, chops wood, sweeps the floor, arranges the merchandise, _anything_ to get his head away from eyes and triangles in any possible combination. Or, mainly, to get his head away from his strange and newly-developed emotions. With that thought, he rubs his eyes and shakes, trying to convince himself to be a _normal_ kid with a _normal_ crush. Sure, he eventually figured out that his feelings for Wendy wouldn't go anywhere, but that was at least a usual situation of a kid having a crush on someone too old for them. That sort of thing happens. _This_ , though...

This uncomfortable and gross churning in Dipper's stomach tells him that it's extremely _not_ normal to have whatever feelings he has. He can't really call it a crush, because oh, my god, no, he doesn't have a _crush_ on a _demon_.

He's not even attracted to Bill Cipher. He can say that in his mind, can say that out loud (even though he wont - who knows who might be listening?) without faltering. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the more impossible it seems for _anyone_ to be attracted to a literal triangle. But there's an atmosphere that Bill leaves, the feeling he exudes, that somehow draws in Dipper, and it's seriously messed up, but it's not like he's ever been one to hide from the truth. He's not attracted to Bill Cipher, he knows, but he's attracted to how Bill makes him _feel_. And how Bill makes him feel is...

The first word that pops into Dipper's mind is _paranoid_. The next few are _unsafe. Uncomfortable. Afraid. Unsettled. Weak._ And if his vocabulary's right, none of those have even partially positive connotations, but all of them mashed into what should be a revolting cacophony ends up creating a somehow coherent sort of melody in his brain. Dipper glares at the ground, meaning to aim it at himself, because he can't seem to understand his own feelings even when he spells them out to himself. Is it a weird form of masochism? Can someone his age even _be_ a masochist? He thinks of the meaning of that word, the idea that someone might enjoy pain, and thinks of the times Bill's done horrible things to him and can only recall feeling annoyed and terrified and frustrated in response.

Now, he thinks of somehow being harmed in some way, maybe of being approached for another deal or something, maybe of being actually physically _hurt_ by him...

His head feels hot suddenly, and the broom almost slips from his hands and falls to the floor. _That's the answer, I guess,_ he thinks guiltily to himself.

Mabel's loud, chipper voice enters the shack around an hour later, and Dipper feels something like both gratitude and disappointment.

* * *

The thought that Bill might not actually be there eventually becomes even more worrying to Dipper than the thought that Bill might be there.

If Bill isn't really invading his dreams regularly, that means Dipper really is going crazy and is only conjuring images and voices of the golden triangle from his own brain. He's not sure how to feel about that other than extremely disturbed. Somehow, the thought that he might be imagining a demon is more bad news than actually seeing one is. Well, he figures, that's his life now. The strange has become normal and the normal has become strange. That's what he thinks all inhabitants of Gravity Falls have to accept over time.

Still, this situation is one on the more weird end of the scale.

It's not necessarily that Dipper has suppressed his possible feelings for Bill Cipher, or even that he's really accepted them, he's just sort of...learned to live with them. Like an annoying roommate who constantly shouts out weird things like, _hey, you want Bill Cipher to hurt you, you should ask him to do that._ Or mocking things like, _the only people you've had feelings for include a girl too old for you and an actual demon, what's wrong with you?_ And even though they're hard to ignore, he's gotten to the point where instead of freaking out over them, he's just rolling his eyes at them and brushing them under the rug, acknowledging their existence but not succumbing to their suggestions, as the now normal occurrences that they are.

But that nagging feeling stays in the back of his head. It's the one that tells him that he's just imagining Bill, that the dream demon isn't there anymore, that he's off somewhere else, bothering someone else, doing other things that have to do with whatever goals he has in mind.

The day drags on with that thought eating away at him. Maybe he really _is_ obsessed, like Mabel has said so many times in the past. Maybe he really _is_ just paranoid, and maybe if he just stops thinking that Bill is visiting him in his dreams, he really will go away. It's a little worrying, but comforting at the same time. He might be able to get a decent night of sleep finally. But then, he might not see Bill anymore, and he might confirm his suspicions that the dream demon really isn't there. It fills him with a strange emotion, one that he's not sure he likes or dislikes.

When he lays his head on the pillow, he tries to clear his mind.

Mainly, he tries to clear it of anything Bill-related. He tries to think of anything else, the work he did in the shack earlier, the board games he played with Mabel just a few minutes ago, the shows on TV. He tries and tries until he falls asleep finally, mind on a funny joke he heard Soos say a few hours prior.

It's two in the morning when he wakes up with a searing pain on his shoulder. It's irritating at first, and gradually as he gets less groggy, it becomes sharp and impossible to ignore. He groans and rolls over, wincing when his shoulder brushes against the pillow. When he reaches a hand over to identify whatever it is that might be causing his pain, he feels a hot liquid drip down his fingers and traces what feels like a cut. Alarmed, he jumps out of bed and glances at his blood-stained sheets for a moment before running into the bathroom and shutting the door, not bothering to be quiet about it since he knows he won't wake anyone up. Dipper flips on the lights and turns to the mirror to inspect himself in horror.

Even with the blood dripping from the gash, an _eye_ has visibly been carved into his arm. It's more than recognizable, and Dipper shakes his head with disbelief.

In half-awake concern, he checks under his fingernails to make sure he didn't do this to _himself_ on accident somehow, and they come away clean, outside of what he got on them while checking his wound.

An eye. He has an _eye_ cut into his _shoulder_.

A few seconds pass as he registers that there's only one possible being who could have put this on him. He places his head in his hands and sits down on the cold floor, closing his eyes.

Was Bill _this_ upset that he tried to convince himself he was just imagining the demon? Is _that_ what this is about? He tries to remember his dream, see if he can recall what might have happened in it to correlate with this, but nothing comes up. Dipper drops his arms to his side and gazes back at the laceration. It's carefully cut, completely precise, no jagged lines or stray marks. Almost like if someone were to have burned it into him rather than carved it. It's still throbbing, like a heartbeat of some sort.

And then, Dipper realizes that this is essentially Bill Cipher _marking_ him. With that thought plaguing his mind, he feels a familiar heat course through his body.

As he grits his teeth and shifts his legs uncomfortably, he understands finally that this, too, is a form of torture.


End file.
